Court decision puts burden on state to prepare children of poverty for school

Thursday

Jan 5, 2006 at 12:01 AM

After a 102-day trial and endless political wrangling, the lawsuit over South Carolina's school funding system comes down to an easily grasped concept: The state must do more to help poor children before they even reach school.

Neither side in the funding lawsuit got what it wanted or expected. In particular, the plaintiff districts did not get the new school buildings and increased state contribution for higher teacher salaries that they wanted.

But they did convince Judge Thomas W. Cooper Jr. that the state must do more to help poor children in school.

Children in poverty face a distinct disadvantage that inhibits their academic success. This is not news. In fact, the judge decided that poverty is such a burden that it must be addressed before a child even enters school.

Whether the state constitution requires or even allows the judge to rule that the state must establish a new pre-school program could be the subject of more litigation.

But the state would do better to simply address the problem Cooper's ruling emphasizes than to appeal it.

A large number of the state's schoolchildren live in poverty. According to the state's Education Oversight Committee, 94 percent of the state's schools have at least a third of their student bodies living in poverty.

These children often do not keep up academically with their more wealthy peers.

It may be because their parents are not as well educated and cannot or will not read to them and give them the early cognitive skills they need to obtain before starting school. The reasons that poverty affects academic success can be controversial.

But the fact that poverty can hold children back is universally acknowledged. And South Carolina has already started to work on the problem. The First Steps program established by former Gov. Jim Hodges is an attempt to give poor children help in getting ready for school.

The state needs to examine, streamline and expand such programs to make sure that poor children are given the early skills and development they need.

The courts have ruled that the state must give South Carolina children the opportunity for an education. Poor children don't have that opportunity if they arrive on the first day of school already behind.